The rumor of Google coming to RTP reached today’s News and Observer with an article that cited the blogosphere. The article cited Jason Caplain’s Southeast VC blog as well as “online marketing guru” Andy Beal, though its not clear what Beal knows that Caplain does not.

Beal was the only one available for an interview by the N&O reporter. Google was unavailable for comment, as was Caplain.

The one tidbit that the article did bring to light is that real-estate brokers are hunting for office space less than 5,000 square feet for Google. That isn’t exactly on the same scale as the Googleplex, to say the least. I’m wondering if this is to be a sales office, or a mini-datacenter as Robert Cringley wrote about.

Yesterday, Greg Brown cited second-hand information that a Google jet has been parked at RDU for the past few days. I didn’t get a chance to check that out personally, but it seems to me that a search for a datacenter wouldn’t take as long as a search for a staff office. It will be telling to see how long that jet is here.